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The Ministry of Health and Healing
perhaps not even a glimpse of blue sky or sunshine, of grass or
flower or tree. Shut up in this way, they brood over their suffering
and sorrow and become a prey to their own sad thoughts.
And for those who are weak in moral power, the cities abound in
dangers. In them, patients who have unnatural appetites to overcome
are continually exposed to temptation. They need to be placed
amid new surroundings where the current of their thoughts will be
changed. They need to be placed under influences entirely different
from those that have wrecked their lives. For a time remove them
into a purer atmosphere, away from those influences that lead away
from God.
Institutions for the care of the sick would be far more successful
if they could be established away from the cities. And so far as
possible, all who are seeking to recover health should place them-
selves amid country surroundings where they can have the benefit of
outdoor life. Nature is God’s physician. The pure air, the bright sun-
shine, the flowers and trees, the orchards and vineyards, and outdoor
exercise amid these surroundings are health-giving, life-giving.
Benefits of the Outdoor Life
Physicians and nurses should encourage their patients to be much
in the open air. Outdoor life is the only remedy that many invalids
need. It has a wonderful power to heal diseases caused by the
excitements and excesses of fashionable life, a life that weakens and
destroys the powers of body, mind, and soul.
To invalids weary of city life, with its glare of bright lights and
noise of the streets, how soothing and healing are the quiet and
freedom of the country! How eagerly do they turn to the scenes of
nature! How glad they would be to sit in the open air, rejoice in the
sunshine, and breathe the fragrance of tree and flower! There are
life-giving properties in the balsam of the pine and in the fragrance
of the cedar and fir. Other trees also have properties that are health
restoring.
To the chronic invalid, nothing so tends to restore health and
happiness as living amid attractive country surroundings. Here the
most helpless can sit or lie in the sunshine or in the shade of the
trees. They have only to lift their eyes to see beautiful foliage. A